"Dai," Nita and Kit said, and walked slowly off the sandbar, across the w ater, and toward the lights of home.A Song of ChoiceNita got up late, and was still yawning and scrubbing her eyes even after she'd washed and dressed and was well into her second bowl of cereal. Her mother, walking around the kitchen in her bathrobe and watering the plants that hung all over, looked at Nita curiously."Neets, were you reading under the covers again last night?""No, Mom." Nita started to eat faster. Her mother watered another plant, then headed for the sink. On the way, she put a hand against Nita's forehead. "You feel okay? Not coming down with anything, are you?" "No, I'm fine." Nita made an annoyed face when her mother's back was turned. Her mom loved the beach, but at the same time was sure that there were hundreds of ways to get sick there: too much heat, too much cold, too much time in the water; splinters, rusty nails, tar. . . . Nita's little sister Dairine had kicked off a tremendous family fight last week by insisting that the blueness of her lips after a prolonged swim was actually caused by a grape Popsicle."Is Kit having a good time?" her mother said. "Wow, yeah, he says it's the best," Nita said. Which was true enough: Kit had never been at the beach for more than a day at a time before. Nita suspected that if he could, he'd dig into the sand like a clam and not come out for months."I just wanted to make sure. His dad called last night . . . wanted to see how his 'littlest' was."" 'El Nino,'" Nita said, under her breath, grinning. It was what Kit s family called him sometimes, a pun—both the word for "the baby" and the name for a Pacific current that caused storms that could devastate whole countries. The name made Kit crazy, and Nita loved to use it on him.
